Never Had a Dream Come True
by deeh
Summary: Draco and Hermione reflect one the nineteen years that could have been. Compliant with the Seventh Book Epilogue.


A/N: Not my best work, but I'm satisfied with it. Just something I whipped up at 3am this morning, you know one of those ideas that spark when you're about to sleep that you just have to write down. I wanted to write something simple yet meaningful and that complied with canon. Hope you enjoy.

**Further Editing:** Subsequent to a meticulous and critical review, I detected a few errors in my writing which I have now at last rectified. Hopefully the flow has improved, without any verbose or grammatical errors kyboshing the general pattern and rhythm of what I'm trying to build here. I hope its better now, and fit for those Dramione awards that this seemed to be nominated for. My SINCEREST THANK YOU to whoever nominated this, you have my gratitude and praise. Enough of my incessant drivel, on to the story! Enjoy!

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**Never Had ****A**** Dream Come True**

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"Do you like where your life has ended?" He asked her quietly.

"It hasn't ended yet, Malfoy and neither has yours," Hermione shot back sagely. After meeting once more after the years since the war, witnessing her happily enjoying the company of her newfound life without him, brought a nostalgic pain and a rude shock. He hadn't expected it, and neither did he want to. The familiar setting of Platform 9 ¾ didn't help either.

"...You look, well," He muttered and looked away. This was a perchance meeting simply days subsequent to their brief reunion on the platform. Seeing him on two successive incidences after almost two decades had both stunned and surprised her. He didn't perceive this impromptu meeting as coincidental though, for he knew that they were here without their spouses' knowledge most likely for the same reason.

"I could say the same about you," She replied, "for a man I haven't met in over a decade." Who was she kidding, despite all her years with Ron, she couldn't deny or help but be angry with herself at the palpitations of her heart when she had seen him again. He was aged, yes but with a wisened handsome fitness. He was still the pointed Malfoy but less pretty as he had been in his more youthful years, for he still did look youthful for a man of his age. It wasn't like they were old either, they weren't even forty yet.

"You say that with resentment, if I correctly recall, that isn't any fault of mine." He told her, applying a certain caustic edge to his voice. She threw him a sharp look.

"Don't tell me we're back to that again. I really thought that seeing you here would be an interesting experience, a quiet occasion if we could only have a nice chat or two-"

"Would you sincerely think that possible with our history? You're the one who ended it, so don't complain to me that my presence in your life has been nothing but scarce since then." He interjected, as he gulped a firewhiskey down. He regretted inwardly at how resentful and bitter he sounded, but the way she was acting like she did, and having barely aged still presented him with the nostalgic picture of what had once been his.

"I couldn't do that to you or Ron. It was unfair to both of you. We had to end it." She reminded him, "you knew perfectly well the day I walked out your door that this was the way it was... that..._affair _we had-"

"Was nothing more than a distraction, a post-war reckless game. A new experience that excited us both upon the revelation that our lives bore a sudden liberation. A passing phase that indeed needed to end. I know. You told me, almost twenty years ago." He cast her a wary glance, wondering if she remembered that those were her exact words that she spoke to him that day. Those words had taken permanent residence in his memory no matter how many times he wanted to force them out.

She remained silent for a moment, surprised to feel a bout of hurt constrict her chest. "Malfoy..." She tried but he didn't respond, "Draco..." He looked up to her. "It's pointless to be discussing a passing fancy that occurred almost twenty years ago. It's done."

"Are you sure about that?" Asked Draco as he slammed his glass down, to which she didn't flinch. "If it were over, we wouldn't be discussing it now would we?"

"Draco, we're married, we just sent our children off to Hogwarts for heaven's sake!" She snapped, her cheeks alight with an angry glow which made him exercise self-control around his arousing loins. He had forgotten that it was her righteous temper more so than her kind and compassionate nature which attracted him to her in the first place. Despite himself, he acknowledged the weight of reality bearing upon her words.

"I'm not a fool Granger," he still adamantly referred to her using her maiden name, the name she had when she was with him, "I can perfectly recall the last twenty years thank you very much. I can also correctly recall how you left me with that practiced speech tumbling robotically from your mouth as you walked away betraying what you were feeling inside. It didn't end there that day"

"How dare you..." she whispered, leaning towards him, perhaps she wouldn't be so offended if a part of her didn't find that held a spark of truth, "I love Ron. I couldn't be with you knowing that I had just established a relationship with him. I couldn't betray him and you know that, in fact you _knew_ that."

"So you had to make a decision, it was me or the Weasel and suffice it to say Granger I'm disappointed in your seeming lack of Gryffindor courage, you made the easy choice and married him." He leaned in towards her, assuring that he was definitely heard. Her breath hitched in her throat at close proximity of him. She could see every new line on his handsome visage, and could recall exactly how it looked when the faint lines hadn't been there. Through the firewhiskey on his breath she caught a whiff of the masculine scent of his cologne and a certain current spread through her as she fought the smile tugging at her lips, knowing that after all these years he hadn't changed. And as though a gate in her mind had suddenly opened the memories flooded through her.

"I don't regret the years Malfoy. I've lead a wonderful life and I wouldn't live it any other way." She stated promptly as she lifted her left hand and flashed him to the wedding band she scarcely removed.

"Neither would I," he said, showing her his.

"Then there's nothing more to say here."

He grabbed her wrist, preventing her from leaving. She stopped abruptly and stared at him, knowing exactly that this situation felt all too familiar.

"Let me go, Malfoy," She ordered weakly, wondering why those words escaping her lips held a familiarity with her tongue.

"It's not over yet, Granger. It didn't end there that day and you know it." Sighing, Hermione returned to her seat, and he didn't let go of her. She gazed into his eyes and wondered to herself, how she ever could have forgotten them, how her mind could ever dismiss the intensity of his stare or how it could have diminished the roaring flame that had once been in her heart. It was now a small candle tucked and hidden away behind the closed door of her past. She however, couldn't deny its existence. And apparently, neither could he.

"You're not man of my dreams Malfoy," Hermione told him quietly. He ignored the sting those words caused.

"You didn't give me a chance to be." He caught her eye and in that moment, something passed between them. Quite suddenly and simultaneously they leaned in towards each other as he pulled her arm towards him. Hermione's breath quickened in her throat as she knew all too well that she wasn't trying to stop this from happening.

Their lips met and immediately deepened from what was perceived to be a chaste kiss. How could they have forgotten what passion sparked immediately between them? Indulging in the one brief, intense moment she closed her eyes and allowed him to take her. Suddenly realising that the tongue sliding sensuously across hers was indeed Draco's, who was not the man she married, she shoved him off and stormed away frantically.

"Granger!" Called Draco, chasing after her into the street and swore under his breath as he realised it had almost begun to rain.

"What?" She yelled at him, an irrational anger sparking within her.

"What happened back there?"

"I don't know, but it's not happening again."

"Don't even think you could blame me for this."

"You kissed me!"

"You kissed me back!"

She trusted herself not to speak and blinked a tear away.

"You should have ended it properly between us." He murmured quietly. "It wasn't over then, and it still isn't over. I want to look at you and see Hermione Weasley, not Hermione Granger. I want to look at you without having to remember your laugh, or your smile or what we could have-" He stopped and faltered. "Let me let go."

"I'm sorry Draco," Said Hermione taking his hand, vowing to extinguish the small flame in her heart.

He dropped her hand. "It's too late for 'I'm sorry,'" He said dispassionately and turned to leave.

"No goodbye then?" She asked him, knowing that this farewell would mark much more than a simple parting of ways today. He turned to look her in the eye, he couldn't say goodbye to her.

Never could.

"...If we still can't say goodbye..." Hermione thought quietly, speaking more to herself, "do you think we would have been worth one more try?" She looked to him wondering if he had heard and judging by his expression, indeed he had.

Draco stared at her. It was too late. Never mind wondering about what the past twenty years could have or _should_ have been. Their lives had been too different now to rectify any mistakes of the past, they deviated so far from the fantasy of what could have been, that all they wished for was impossible. She was Hermione Weasley now, and he had his wife.

It was too late.

"Goodbye... Weasley." He closed his eyes and walked away.

And as Draco had predicted, it had begun to rain.

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**A/N:** What do you think? I'm on an epilogue rebellion! Rather than deciding to ignore what JK put in that... thing (Which had practically doomed all ships aside from the canon ones), I've decided to be flexible and work with it. And to think we despaired at our lovely ships being sunk. Ever since I finished the seventh book, I've been on a tirade imagining different plotlines in my head of how to get my favourite couple together. And well, although most of them ended like this, you can't help but like even a little angst. But alas it seems most of us on the non-canon ships seem to be blissfully ignorant of the epilogue and developed a new acronym. EWE. Epilogue? What Epilogue? I laughed when I first saw that.

Ah well, that's the power of fanfiction for ya.

http://ladycalalily.


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